Breakdown of На собрании присутствовали одни мужчины.
мужчина
man
на
on, at / by (transport) / to (a place) / to (in answer to)
собрание
meeting (assembly, formal gathering)
присутствовать
to be present
один
only (one, alone)
Questions & Answers about На собрании присутствовали одни мужчины.
Why use the plural word одни to mean "only"?
In Russian, the plural form одни often acts as a restrictive particle meaning "only" or "nothing but." Here, одни мужчины emphasizes that the group consisted entirely of men, with no one else present.
Why does собрании end in -ии instead of the standard prepositional -е?
The dictionary form is собрание (meeting), which is a neuter noun ending in -ие. Nouns ending in -ия or -ие take -ии in the prepositional case, which is why it becomes на собрании to show location.
What is the infinitive of присутствовали and how does it conjugate in the present?
The infinitive is присутствовать (to be present). Because it has the -ова- suffix, that suffix changes to -у- in the present tense, making it я присутствую, ты присутствуешь, and so on. Here it is simply in the past tense plural.
Since мужчина ends in -а, does the plural одни have a feminine ending?
No. While мужчина (man) declines like a feminine noun, it is grammatically masculine. However, in the nominative plural, all genders use the same forms for adjectives and words like один. Therefore, одни is just the standard plural form used for all genders.
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